In the Palm of Your Hand

Companies are searching to fit the Web
on the screens of hand-held gadgets

By

Lisa Bransten

Updated Sept. 20, 1999 12:01 a.m. ET

In the mid-1990s, PalmPilot creators Donna Dubinsky and Jeff Hawkins argued with dozens of venture capitalists that their hand-held computers shouldn't come with wireless applications.

Ms. Dubinsky, founder of Palm Computing, now owned by 3Com Corp., recalls that although adding wireless communications to the original Pilot would have been nice, the price was too high: It would have turned the little hand-held device into a big...